Car industry Tesla faces one-month sales ban in California
The electric car manufacturer Tesla is facing a 30-day sales ban in the high-sales US state of California. This was triggered by a court's assessment that the company had exaggerated the capabilities of its "Autopilot" assistance system.
17.12.2025, 04:49
17.12.2025, 04:50
SDA
The Californian transport authority postponed implementation of the sales ban for 60 days to allow tech billionaire Elon Musk's company to make changes. If this does not happen, the dealer license will then be suspended for 30 days, the authority announced.
Tesla sold just under 135,500 vehicles in California in the first nine months of this year, according to calculations by a dealer association - a drop of 15 percent. This put the company in third place behind Toyota and Honda.
The court also proposed suspending Tesla's manufacturer's license in California for 30 days. However, the transportation authority put this measure on hold indefinitely. Tesla's main plant in Fremont is located in California.
Does the name promise too much?
The debate about the name and marketing of the "Autopilot" system and especially the "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) expansion stage has been going on for a long time. FSD does not turn a Tesla into a self-driving car, even if the name suggests it. Whoever is at the wheel must be ready to take control at all times and bears the responsibility. This means that FSD is effectively just an assistance system.
Despite warnings in the Tesla manual, many drivers relied excessively on the "Autopilot" software, according to findings by the accident investigation authority NTSB. Tesla has already made some changes and refers to the current version as "FSD supervised". Only at the "FSD unsupervised" level, which has not yet been introduced as standard, will the vehicles be able to drive truly autonomously.
Robotaxi race
Tesla is currently using a version of this future software to operate several dozen vehicles as robotaxis in the Texan city of Austin. The driver's seat remains empty - but an attendant is positioned in the passenger seat. Two Teslas have now been spotted in Austin without any people at all, even though another of the company's vehicles was following them. Tesla shares subsequently closed at a record high of 489.88 dollars.
Google's sister company Waymo has more than 2,500 fully autonomous robotaxis on the roads in several US cities and is considered the clear number one in technology for self-driving cars.
